Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…

Thursday, October 22, 2015

There’s something recognizably American about Jim Webb, and that doesn’t sit well with the Democratic base

Is it any wonder then that Webb, a gun-owning Marine Corps veteran of
Scots-Irish descent hailing
from a southern state, doesn’t fit in?
There’s something recognizably American about Webb, and that doesn’t sit
well with the Democratic base. Many of their recent candidates have had
a European air about them, and a few have seemed like
extraterrestrials.

Part of [Jim] Webb’s problem is that his party is obsessed with identity
politics. When seeking the Democratic nomination it helps to belong to
some kind of victim class—to be a woman, a minority, or to sleep with
people of your own sex. Being white and male doesn’t get you any points.
Working class roots counts for something, though less and less with
each passing year.

If you don’t fall into one of the
recognized victims categories, the only way to create buzz among
Democrats is to veer way, way left.

… Jim Webb has no future in this party because wing he represents—the
blue collar whites—is shriveled and dying. He’s made a point to stick up
for that demographic group, arguing for example that affirmative action
should consider economic circumstances rather than race. He contends
that Democrats aren’t attuned to poor people’s problems when those poor
people are white.

… But much like the late Rodney Dangerfield, Jim Webb “don’t get no
respect!” in today’s Democratic Party. It’s almost as if their famed
“big tent” is a sham, as if they apply “purity tests” to their
candidates.

The problem with Jim Webb is that he’s
outlived his usefulness and no one has the heart to break the bad news
to him. The poor schlub made his entrance in 2006 when the Democrats
desperately needed real life war heroes. They had had two bad election
cycles in 2002 and 2004, due in part to the fact that fresh memories of
9/11 made many Americans unwilling to trust national security to the
Democrats. Luckily for them the political winds were starting to shift
as Americans’ patience wore thin with the sputtering Iraq War. The
Democrats knew that if they were ever to turn an unpopular war to their
advantage they would have to field candidates who could never be accused
of being wimps and whose admiration for the military was beyond
reproach. They needed square-jawed, red-blooded American men with
honorable military service and the medals to prove it. In short, they
needed Jim Webb.

But that was nearly ten years ago. With the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan both kinda-sorta over, the Democrats are free to be
themselves again—angry women, effete men, elitist northeasterners, and
gun grabbers.